Telephony and conferencing systems in which participants communicate in a conference session or meeting over existing voice and data networks, have been in been in existence for many years. Modern conferencing and telephony systems typically include advanced features that enhance user capabilities. For instance, “call waiting” is a well-known feature of telephony systems that notifies a caller when another call is coming in during an active call. “Call parking” is a configurable feature of certain telephony systems that allows the user to deposit a stable call at a specified directory number, then go to another phone and dial the park number to retrieve the call. Similarly, some telephony systems enable a technique known as “camping on” a call, wherein an incoming call is stored on hold until an attendant, trunk, trunk group, or station is available to accept it, at which time the call is completed. Basically, when the current call ends, the system connects the user with the phone whose call was being camped-on.
One important drawback of the existing camp-on approach is that it only applies to calls that are currently in progress. That is, there is presently no way for a person to set up a camp-on for a call that will take place sometime in the future. But situations do arise in which a person wants to speak directly with another person at a future time; for instance, immediately after the other person finishes a scheduled conference call. For example, an employee of a company may need to discuss an urgent matter with his manager. The manager, however, may have a very full schedule that includes numerous conference calls, allowing him little if any available time. Often times, the manager suggests that the employee try to reach him after his participation in a certain teleconference call ends. A manager, for instance, may tell the employee that he has a scheduled one-hour conference call that starts at 11:00 a.m. tomorrow, but expects to get away early, and recommends that the employee catch up with him after the meeting ends. This means that the employee must wait until the scheduled teleconference starts and then frequently walk past or call his manager's office to see if he is still on the phone. Obviously, this approach is inconvenient and results in considerable wasted employee work time for the enterprise.